Beginnings . . .
Most people don’t have a problem with God, they have a problem with Christians and the church. Gandhi even said something like that once, “I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
That cuts. Deep down we know it’s true. Deep down we feel irrelevant. We feel like what we do is pointless. A rat race. Running around in circles, going through the motions. It’s a heavy load to carry. Kind of the opposite of when Jesus said, “My yoke (way) is easy.”
We know something is wrong, things are not as they could or should be.
The problem comes when we refuse to do anything about it. Or don’t think there are any alternatives. It’s either Republican or Democrat, left or right, conservative or liberal. And I think the way of Jesus is a way that transcends stereotypical polarizations. He takes things to another level, a higher plane. And gives us a third way. That’s the way that I began to discover about 3 years ago and continue to discover.
However, it was an extremely frustrating and disillusioning experience at first. As you transition from one paradigm to the next, there is this stage of disembedding, and in a larger sense a deconstructing of what you’ve always known. Which leaves you feeling torn, like you’ve all of a sudden become some sort of a heretic. And so you’re torn between the way that is giving you a glimmer of hope and if you stay with it, you feel like a heretic to what you’ve always believed and done and it scares the hell out of you. The other option is to give up hope, slip into the flow of the norm, and quit being true to yourself and become like everyone else but you. So there is this tension. A very real tension. And this process for me took about 2 years. It was long and painful and I felt like I was being torn in a million different directions. And I’m just now coming out on the other side of it. And as I do, I really fill like one of the children of Narnia running out into a wide open space with rolling hills, free to run and experience God in a much more real and satisfying way.
I think it took me 2 years, because I didn’t have any one to walk with me on the journey. So I was by myself. I didn’t have any forums or outlets to question, think, dream. Every time I would bring something up that I was thinking, I was quickly given the evil eye. You can only imagine what that looks like working for 2 Southern Baptist churches during this period. But God was faithful. I kept moving forward. I kept praying “Open my eyes to the reality of it all”. And I’ve come through that narrow tunnel of disembedding from the old way to becoming a part of God’s new way.
This type of transition is not unprecedented. I can’t help but think that Martin Luther probably felt the same way. And went through some of the same type of tensions, between feeling hope and life and authenticity to feeling like a heretic. In fact, its hard to believe that any great movement, any great hinge of history, didn’t go through this same type of awkward transition.
All I’m saying is that you’re not alone. It’s ok to feel what you feel. It’s ok to be frustrated with what you’re frustrated at. It’s ok to not be satisfied, to not be content, to just eek through life, in the words of my friends from Dumb and Dumber.
We’re not satisfied for a reason. We’re discontent for a reason. It’s not just because we like to cause problems. And it’s not because we want to start a revolution. But it’s because we want to get closer to God. We want to be more faithful to the way of Jesus. And if that is our starting point . . . then I think we might be in much better shape than we might think.
That cuts. Deep down we know it’s true. Deep down we feel irrelevant. We feel like what we do is pointless. A rat race. Running around in circles, going through the motions. It’s a heavy load to carry. Kind of the opposite of when Jesus said, “My yoke (way) is easy.”
We know something is wrong, things are not as they could or should be.
The problem comes when we refuse to do anything about it. Or don’t think there are any alternatives. It’s either Republican or Democrat, left or right, conservative or liberal. And I think the way of Jesus is a way that transcends stereotypical polarizations. He takes things to another level, a higher plane. And gives us a third way. That’s the way that I began to discover about 3 years ago and continue to discover.
However, it was an extremely frustrating and disillusioning experience at first. As you transition from one paradigm to the next, there is this stage of disembedding, and in a larger sense a deconstructing of what you’ve always known. Which leaves you feeling torn, like you’ve all of a sudden become some sort of a heretic. And so you’re torn between the way that is giving you a glimmer of hope and if you stay with it, you feel like a heretic to what you’ve always believed and done and it scares the hell out of you. The other option is to give up hope, slip into the flow of the norm, and quit being true to yourself and become like everyone else but you. So there is this tension. A very real tension. And this process for me took about 2 years. It was long and painful and I felt like I was being torn in a million different directions. And I’m just now coming out on the other side of it. And as I do, I really fill like one of the children of Narnia running out into a wide open space with rolling hills, free to run and experience God in a much more real and satisfying way.
I think it took me 2 years, because I didn’t have any one to walk with me on the journey. So I was by myself. I didn’t have any forums or outlets to question, think, dream. Every time I would bring something up that I was thinking, I was quickly given the evil eye. You can only imagine what that looks like working for 2 Southern Baptist churches during this period. But God was faithful. I kept moving forward. I kept praying “Open my eyes to the reality of it all”. And I’ve come through that narrow tunnel of disembedding from the old way to becoming a part of God’s new way.
This type of transition is not unprecedented. I can’t help but think that Martin Luther probably felt the same way. And went through some of the same type of tensions, between feeling hope and life and authenticity to feeling like a heretic. In fact, its hard to believe that any great movement, any great hinge of history, didn’t go through this same type of awkward transition.
All I’m saying is that you’re not alone. It’s ok to feel what you feel. It’s ok to be frustrated with what you’re frustrated at. It’s ok to not be satisfied, to not be content, to just eek through life, in the words of my friends from Dumb and Dumber.
We’re not satisfied for a reason. We’re discontent for a reason. It’s not just because we like to cause problems. And it’s not because we want to start a revolution. But it’s because we want to get closer to God. We want to be more faithful to the way of Jesus. And if that is our starting point . . . then I think we might be in much better shape than we might think.
posted by Josh at 8:34 AM
1 Comments:
These are good words. Sounds like the last two years of my life as well. Here's some of what I experienced along the same lines.
Asking the question of what it would take to make following Jesus work in our current context has more implications than I've been able to imagine so far. The deeper I go into that question, the more far-reaching and unsettling the implications are. The obvious flip side is I also find more freedom and life there.
I've never naturally wanted to be on the side of judging the modern concept of church, usually believing it would do more harm than good. But I've realized you can't wrestle with the right questions without "naming names", so to speak. You have to make it personal.
That's why it hurts so damn much.
For me it was never the "us vs them" aspect that hurt so much, but the "us and us". You have people in your life who you love deeply who are consumed in the constructs you are questioning. People whose investments made you who you are. People who walked alongside you. People who carried you through your toughest and most broken moments. People who are more like family than they are like friends.
The rub for me was that I couldn't wrestle these things through to conclusion without things changing. You can't keep one hand in the old way and one in the new. And so a few of those people's paths converged with ours, but many didn't.
My wife and I have commented several times recently that going through this is not unlike grieving. Suddenly everything has changed. Something that used to make you feel safe no longer even makes sense. Now, I go back to the institutional church we were very plugged into, and I feel like a stranger or like I don't belong. It's a very deep-down kind of hurt. I look around and I see anonymous faces with empty eyes, and I want more for them. I want them to be alive. I find myself praying more with groanings and less with words.
But in the end, what else can you do except keep following God? I mean, you can't go back. Why would you? I would rather be experiencing life (meaning in him) than the degree of comfort or ease I could have by settling for less. The pain is still there and although it doesn't make you right, let it be encouragement that we're engaged.
Plus I would say that this is what makes the community that emerges so intense and missional. It's the body of Christ, for many, connected and functioning for the first time.
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